Are the walls talking to you again?

just answer the question. Fuck according to whom. Are we dependent on the authority of authorities? Maybe so, what does the pope say? — Merkwurdichliebe

Your question betokens insanity on your part. Can you ask me a sane one please.

As far as I can tell, you are leaping from 'mind' being a singular noun to some dusty ontological thesis. Do you think boats have ovaries? Can rivers smoke cigars ? — Pie

But badger's pickle yellow numbers by night.

This is depressingly sloppy reasoning. ' — Pie

No it isn't. I mean, it may depress you. But it is not sloppy.

I have already mentioned it in this thread and I am not sure there is much point in repeating it.

You want me to list names? What would that add? So, shall we start with Parmenides and then Zeno of Elea. How many more do you want? What'll do the trick, Isaac?

Or do you want to know why they thought that any region of space can be infinitely divided?

No. What did I just say? I just said this;

I don't think it is very reasonable to think that NDEs are veridical experiences as opposed to dreams. — Bartricks

What does that mean? That means I think NDEs are not veridical experiences.

So, I think they're not evidence of an afterlife. I think they're evidence that people have dreams.

This may be confusing you because I believe there is good evidence for an afterlife and perhaps you think that this commits me to thinking that any argument anyone gives for an afterlife is a good argument. That is not my view.

Here's an argument for the afterlife that i also think is a very bad one: I have a pumpkin in my fridge. Therefore there is an afterlife. Now, I think that's a shite argument. I believe there is an afterlife. And I believe there is evidence for this - indeed, the evidence is the only reason I believe it. But I don't think the fact there is a pumpkin in my fridge is evidence that there is an afterlife.

So I believe there is good evidence there's an afterlife.

I believe NDEs are not good evidence there's an afterlife.

Maybe you are a stoopid poopu dummy head. That is not a reason to stop posting your genius philosophies. — Merkwurdichliebe

One does not need to be a genius to see that this argument is sound:

1. If my mind is a material thing, then it is divisible
2. My mind is not divisible
3. Therefore, my mind is not a material thing

Premise 1 is clearly true, for a material thing is, by definition, extended in space and any region of space can be divided.

And premise 2 is also manifest to reason, as half a mind makes no sense.

The conclusion follows as a matter of logic.

Sorry if the conclusion is inconvenient, but there you go - the truth sometimes is.

o maybe the distinction is between the scientific view (no brain activity after death etc.) vs the anecdotal view (NDEs etc.)? — Changeling

I don't understand what you mean. It doesn't seem to connect with anything I have said.

You don't have to experience something to know about it.

I don't think it is very reasonable to think that NDEs are veridical experiences as opposed to dreams.

But I do think that we can know that there is an afterlife.

My point is that "the mind is indivisible" is (approximately) not even wrong. It's mostly useless hot air, probably religiously motivated.

The square root of Tuesday is tuna fish sandwiches ! Prove me wrong if you dare. — Pie

How are you addressing anything I said? Why am I writing posts explaining my argument again and again and again, when you don't seem to be able to address it? It's very foolish of me. I am going to stop now, because you have nothing of any philosophical content to contribute.

No, you do. You don't seem able to understand very basic points.

An immaterialist - the opposite of a materialist - believes there are objects of the senses. So it is no part of the definition of a materialist that they believe in objects of the senses, for that would generate a contradiction.

You seem unable to distinguish between the defintiion of materialism - which is what I said it is - and the additional claim (and not part of the definition) that our senses give us some awareness of material objects.

Anyway, you're now committed to thinking that's wrong, aren't you? Bartricks said it.

You defined materialism incorrectly. Suck it up. Learn your mistake and move on.

Materialism is the view that there exist extra-mental extended objects.

It's not a view about how we're aware of them. It 's a view about what exists. That is, it is an 'ontological' view (you can drop that into conversation now) not an 'epistemological' view.
It is typically accompanied by the view that our senses give us some awareness of material objects.

But virtually no materialists think that all material things are available to the senses - atoms and so on are material, yet we cannot sensibly detect them.

And it is entirely consistent with being a materialist that one might believe that no objects of the senses are material objects, for it is entirely consistent with the thesis that one might believe we are brains in vats being artificially stimulated.

But again, because I'm saying all of this it must be wrong, right?

Like I say, all filler no killer.

Lots of views are this. Lots of views are that. Lots of views are mistaken. So what? What's your point?

You're implying my views are mistaken, yes? That's what you're trying to do - you want to say 'Bartick's views are wrong', but without actually having to go to the trouble of locating a mistake and making a proper criticism.

I don't think you really know what views you hold and so you just change your views post to post. Here's what you said:

since it is obvious that mind is not a material things in the sense of being an object of the senses, which is the common definition of a material thing. — Janus

That's not the definition of a material thing. You said it was. It isn't. A material thing is what I said it is: a mind-external extended thing. But that means it is false, yes? Bartricks said it. Therefore it is false.

It's not 'our reason' but merely a piece of the philosophical tradition (centered on Descartes) that tells you (not us) that souls are immaterial minds. — Pie

The tradition in question is the tradition of listening to reason. All you're doing is talking about views in a dismissive tone. That's not how you refute a view.

Plato, Descartes, Berkeley - christ, shit loads of philosophers - have all employed what is called 'the indivisiblity' argument for the soul.

They were not part of a cult. They didn't know each other. They often profoundly disagreed with other aspects of the worldviews they came independently to defend. Yet they all got the rational impression that our minds are invidisible.

And virtually everyone does, in fact, for virtually everyone can acknowledge that the idea of half a mind makes no sense whatsoever.

That's very good evidence that our minds are indivisible. Our reason - the reason of humans possessed of reason throughout the history of careful thought on the matter - represents our minds to be indivisible.

Stop the cod history and try and do some actual philosophy. It's called 'the genetic fallacy' - thinking you can dismiss a view simply by describing the history of how it has come to be held.

Our reason represents our minds to be indivisible things.

That's prima facie evidence that's precisely what they are.

That means it is defeasible evidence. That's fancy for 'it could be false'.

But it means the burden of proof is on the person who thinks minds are divisible to undercut those rational intuitions.

You don't undercut a rational intuition by simply noting that it is possible for it to be false. Possibilities are not evidence. And you don't undercut them by inviting others to associate anyone who follows such evidence with people who believe in angels and phlogiston.

So, you are doing nothing in terms of addressing the case I have made for the indivisibility of the mind. You're just not engaging with it at all. It's all filler, no killer.

All material things are objects of the senses. — Janus

You're just contradicting what I just said. LIke I say, you clealy think the fact I have said something is sufficient for it to be mistaken. I'm published on this stuff, for christ's sake!

Now, once again: an immaterialist believes in the objects of the senses. So, if you define a materailst as someone who believes in the objects of the senses, then an immaterialist turns out to be a materialist.

Do you see why that's not the correct definition?

A materialist is not an immaterialist. That's what the 'im' means. They're opposites.

Yet both believe in the objects of the senses. They disagree about what they're made of.

Materialism is the view that there exists an extended mind-external realm: the material realm.

Immaterialism is the view that there is no such place and that all that exists are minds and their contents. The sensible world is made of the sensational activity of another mind. The sensible world exists as surely as it does on materialism, but it exists 'as' sensations as opposed to extended mind-exterrnal things that our sensations - some of them, some of the time - are capable of giving us some awareness of.

And some philosophers believe minds are made of extended stuff - such as our brains - and others (myself included) believe they are made of immaterial stuff.

We might say that a person thinks with their mind. But whatever we decide, we should (again) be wary of whether we are just teaching some useless idiolect of English to one another. — Pie

All you're saying is "we should be wary of making mistakes". Er, yes. So? Clearly the implication is that you think I've made one. Well, locate it and defend your claim that it is a mistake. At the moment you're trying to have your cake and eat it. You're making very general claims - such as that we should be wary of making mistakes - without actually locating any mistake. So you're implying I'm making mistakes, but you're not saying what mistake I am making. I can't attack fog.

This is too simplistic, since it is obvious that mind is not a material things in the sense of being an object of the senses, which is the common definition of a material thing. — Janus

It is not simplistic at all, for they exhaust the alternatives. And that's not the definition of a material thing. An immaterialist does not deny the objects of the senses, yet they deny materialism.

Materialism is the view that there exist extra-mental extended things.

And any and all of those who think conscious states are states of the brain are holders of the view that the mind is the brain or some part of it (or whtaever they take the mental states to be supervening on or whatever ghastly term they employ). I've explained why and it is tedious to have to keep repeating things.

All I can do is repeat the point: faculties, 'functions' and so forth are always of a thing or involve things. You can't just have 'functions' floating about by themselves.

So, the mind 'has' faculties. It is not a set of faculties. That's a category error.

Minds 'have' states - they're called mental states for that very reason. A mental state is a 'state of mind'. That is, a state a mind can be in.

Minds do not, in my view, have 'funtions' as that supposes that they were made for some purpose, whereas they are not 'made' at all.

But nevertheless, it is always something that has a function, be it a person or a process or whatever. And it is a category error to confuse the function with the person whose function it is.

It is ironic that someone here has mentioned Ryle - someone who clearly hasn't read him or read him and understood him - for this was a point he made over and over.

Minds are things. There are things. And minds are among them. What kind of a thing is what philosophers debate. Materialists think minds are material things and immaterialists and dualists think they are immaterial things. That's what the debate is over.

Even a functionalist about the mind is not someone who identifies the mind with a set of functions. Rather they are someone who thinks that two functionally isomorphic systems will both have mental states if one them does. The mind remains a thing, the functionalism is simply a claim about what governs whether a thing has mental states (and thus whether a thing is a mind or not).

You think that the only people who can know what happens to them after death are those who've died, yes? That was the implication of what you said - that those, like myself, who draw conclusions about what happens to us after death on the basis of reasoned argument, have not acquired knowledge of the matter because we are not yet dead ourselves. Or am I misinterpreting you?

So, do you think that the only people who know about cancer are those who have it? That's the same reasoning, is it not? That to know about cancer, one has to have it.

Yet obviously one can know a lot about cancer without having it. Indeed, someone can know far more about cancer and not have it than someone who has it. It would be foolish to only seek advice on how to treat cancer from those who have had it. (One - one - way to acquire some knowledge about cancer is to have it - and that's also a way of acquiring knowledge about what happens to us after death...one can die...but it is absurd to suppose that's the 'only' way).

There is no reason at all to think that only those who have died know what happens after death, just as there is no reason at all to think that only those who have cancer know about cancer.

The arguments I have provided for life after death are sound. Certainly no one here has raised any kind of reasonable doubt about their soundness (or even seems to know how to set about doing that). if those arguments are indeed sound, then I know what happens to us after death. I haven't died. Yet I know what happens to us: we go to a worse place. For if my arguments are sound then that is indeed what happens to us - and so my belief is true - and I have acquired it in the right manner (by reason rather than by luck).

Compare that to someone who has a near death experience, actually does have an accurate experience of the afterlife, yet when they are revived they consider it a dream. Well, that person has actually experienced the afterlife, yet they do not know what happens to them after death.

So a person can die and not know what happens to them after death, and a person can not die and know what will happen to them after death.

So, you think that only people who have died should be posting on this thread? You think only someone who has died knows whether we survive it or not? Tell me, do you think one cannot be a cancer specialist unless one has cancer?

I think 1 is true and 2 is false.

Digestion is an activity. Something does it.
Thinking is an activity. Something does it. And the thing that does thinking is called 'a mind'.
You keep making category errors. A mind is a thing. An object. It is that which has mental states. That is why they are called mental states. States. Of. Mind.

There is a question over what kind of thing it is.

Our reason is our only source of insight into reality.

Our reason tells us that our minds are immaterial things (that's what a 'soul' is - an immaterial mind).

One of the ways in which it does this is to tell us that minds are indivisible. Half a mind makes no sense.

If something is indivisible then it is immaterial.

Why?

Because if something is extended in space, then it can be divided, for any region of space is infinitely divisible (which is a huge problem for the coherence of materialism about anything).

Thus, our minds appear to be immaterial things, for that is what our reason says about them.

That's positive evidence. There is a lot of it.

There's none that our minds are material. None. Prove me wrong.

Hot air. Come on, argue something.

An argument matey. Make an argument.

Yes, I like to Ryle them up.

Do you have any kind of point to make? Or did you just want to pretend to have read things you haven't read?

like I say, you are a wikipedia paraphrasing bot.

You ain't read him. Funny.

You haven't read him, pie.

You have nothing to say. You are a wikipedia paraphrasing bot.

You haven't read him.

Do you know how I know that?

You haven't read him. You are a b/s artist with nothing to say.

You haven't actually read Ryle have you?

Now, present an argument for the materiality of the mind. You are about to be taken to school

What are you on about?

An argument. Give me one argument for the materiality of the mind. Use Ryle. Come on.

i've read it (unlike the mindless up thumbers). As you would know if you had (you haven't read it have you!?). And it is shite.

Now, locate for me an actual argument that the mind is not an immaterial soul

IMV, good philosophers often try to show us that our questions were ill-conceived in the first place. — Pie

Where is there any evidence that questions about the mind are of this sort?

It also makes more sense to me that metaphysicians should have to argue for their positive claims. — Pie

You either think there's reason to think that's true, or you think there's no reason to think that's true but you think it anyway.

If you think there's reason to think that's true, then you accept the authority of reason. Which is just as well, for all philosophy involves appealing to reason.

Now, our reason represents our minds to exist and to be indivisible things.

That's evidence that that's precisely what they are.

Is there any countervailing evidence? Does Ryle provide any (no)?

This is all those who disbelieve in the soul do: they attempt to show how it is metaphysically possible for the mind 'not' to be an immaterial soul.

It's not even clear they manage this. But who cares? Even if it is possible for the mind to not be an immaterial soul, that doesn't begin to be evidence that it is not an immaterial soul.

I mean, it is metaphysically possible for me to be in Paris. But that's not evidence I'm in Paris. I'm not.

Where in that book does Ryle present a single argument against the idea that the mind is a single, indivisible, thing?

All he does is describe cases where we talk 'as if' there is a thing, when in fact there is not. That is not any kind of evidence that our minds are not singular indivisible things.

Mental states are states of mind. That is, they are states of a thing. So there is a thing that bears them, and we call it a mind. There's no mystery here. The word 'mind' denotes that which bears mental states.

And our reason tells us that our minds are indivisible. You note that our moral responsibilty is 'ours' - that is, it belongs to us, not our states of mind. That is just more evidence that our minds are things distinct form the states they are in.

This is quite unlike, say, a university and its buildings and practices and employees (Ryle's example).

So the burden of proof is squarely on him to provide some positive evidence against the 'ghost in the machine' thesis, for the evidence appears to point to it.

What evidence does he provide? And again, brute possibilities are not evidence and nor is describing a view in a scathing way or inviting us to think that only luddites from the past would believe their minds to be souls.

Extended space makes no sense for the same reason objects extended in it make no sense. See above for an explanation. Oh, sorry, you lack all understanding. I'll just make some little yellow pictures and you can stare at them: :gasp: :snicker: :cool: :love: :death: :flower: :starstruck:

You lack basic comprehension of logical fallacy, and are a dickhead. — DingoJones

There's no fallacy committed by my argument, Dingy.

1. If death harms the one who dies, then the one who dies must exist at the time
2. Death harms the one who dies
3. Therefore, the one who dies exists at the time. — Bartricks

That's valid.

And the great Hugh, that master of logic, thinks that premise 2 is true and that 1 is true and that 3 is false. How he does that, I really do not know - that's his great skill! Watch in amazement as the great Hugh believes another contradiction. How does he do it? Is it done with mirrors? Does he have a hidden premise up his sleave? Gather round as Batricks gives him valid argument after valid argument and Hugh accepts the premises and rejects the conclusions. No one else can do it quite like he can.....

All I can do is show that they do not entail any contradictions. — A Christian Philosophy

I think they do - if you claim that God is unable to do some things and that God is also able to do anything, then that's a contradiction.

If you maintain that God is able to do all things that logic permits, but not those things that logic does not permit, then God is constrained by logic and thus not omnipotent - which is a contradiction.

To be omnipotent is to be able to do anything. After all, someone who can do anything is manifestly more powerful than someone who can only do some things and not others. So, God can do anything. And that means there's nothing he's unable to do.

Any biblical passage that could be read as suggesting otherwise should be interpreted to be employing words like 'can't' expressively rather than descriptively (as in "I can't stand it any longer!!").

But I do not fully understand your view. If God can do anything such that there is nothing that he cannot do, then why also claim that he cannot become 3 persons and 1 person at the same time? — A Christian Philosophy

I did not claim that he cannot be three persons and one person at the same time. My claim was that the idea is incoherent as it involves a contradiction. And that's sufficient grounds to reject it, as no contradictions are true.

God can do anything and so he can make contradictions true if he wants. But that's consistent with no contradictions being true. And our reason - which is from God - assures us that no contradictions are true and to reject a theory if it entails one. So we are told - by God - to reject the idea that he is three persons and one person at the same time.

That God is not three persons and one person at the same time is entirely consistent with him having the ability to be.

I am not in Paris. But I am able to be. But I am not. I really am not in Paris. I can be. But I am not.

God can do anything. But he does not, in fact, make contradictions true. Indeed, he tells us that none of them are true. And we call that the law of non-contradiction. But true though it is, it is true because God makes it so, not because God is himself subject to it.

So, that which is nonsense is nonsense because and only because he deems it so. And God deems it nonsense that 3 persons can also be 1 person. And so nonsense it is. And we should reject that which is nonsense - to not do so would be to not listen to God. But he can make it make sense if he so wishes.

If the mind is a thing then it occupies a space. Or are there things that do not occupy a space? — Daniel

No, minds do not occupy space. If they did, they'd be divisible. But they're indivisible. Thus they do not occupy space.

If you think everything that exists has to occupy space, then our minds demonstrate that's false.

And indeed, we can actually demonstrate it is false independent of the nature of our minds. For if something occupies space, then it is divisible. And thus it will be made of parts into which it can be divided.
But something cannot have infinite parts. Thus the raw ingredients from which a thing is made must themselves be indivisible, else we will find ourselves on an infinite regress.
And those things will not occupy space.

This poses a well known problem for those who believe in things that occupy space: it does not seem possible for there to be such things. As if everything must have some basic ingredients from which it is constructed, and if those ingredients must be indivisible, then anything that exists must be made of (or be) something indivisible. But indivisible things occupy no space. And no amount of joining together things that occupy no space will ever result in the creation of a thing that does occupy space. Thus, it seems that things that occupy space - the notion of such a thing, anyway - make no real sense.

It is indeed a waste of time to replace my argument with stupid ones that I didn't make and that don't make sense.

Here's my argument:

1. If death harms the one who dies, then the one who dies must exist at the time
2. Death harms the one who dies
3. Therefore, the one who dies exists at the time. — Bartricks

That's valid and sound.

Here's a different argument:

1. If DIngo Jones had any training in philosophy whatsoever, then he'd know that you need to address the argument a person made, not a totally different one of your own invention
2. Dingo Jones does not know that you need to address the argument a person made, and not a totally different one of your own invention
3. THerefore Dingo jones has no training in philosophy whatsoever.

Do you see how the soundness (and it is sound, isn't it?) of that argument has nothing whatsoever to do with the soundness of the other?

In a quite brilliant move Hugh defeated Bartricks in the dual by absorbing the bullet Bartricks fired at him with his own head. Dingo clapped and clapped. "Excellent work Hugh! And spilling your brains all over him was a nice touch too!"

Again, you need to deny premise 1. So make an argument against it.
— Bartricks

Premise one is undeniable: is it is in the form of "if...then". It is premise two, and the conclusion that follows from it which may or may not be sound depending on whether by "death" you mean dying or being dead. Has it penetrated your thick skull yet? — Janus

Er, what? Is it feeding time in the fishtank? Shall I remind you of the argument? Here it is:

1. If death harms the one who dies, then the one who dies must exist at the time
2. Death harms the one who dies
3. Therefore, the one who dies exists at the time. — Bartricks

You think 2 is true. Here you are thinking it is true:

Of course killing someone harms them — Janus

So, that means you have to deny 1, doesn't it?

Where's your argument that 1 is false, Hugh?